Rumors are killing Apple’s mojo

Macworld

Welcome to our weekly Apple Breakfast column, which includes all the Apple news you missed last week in a handy bite-sized roundup. We call it Apple Breakfast because we think it goes great with a Monday morning cup of coffee or tea, but it’s cool if you want to give it a read during lunch or dinner hours too.

No surprises

Another year, another iPhone event. And another reminder of how much has changed since the first one.

Back in 2007, the tech world was a lot easier to surprise. That’s not to say that the existence of the iPhone was completely unsuspected: I worked for a PC-focused print magazine at the time and we’d heard the rumors just like everyone else. (“Like an iPod, only a phone,” was the gist.) It’s just that we were speculating at the level of whether it was going to happen, rather than the granular details of what exactly would be announced.

Rewatching the Stevenote from Macworld San Francisco 2007, it’s remarkable to note the level of uncertainty in the audience. They’re not just there to clap along with announcements they were expecting, then get their hands on review samples. They’re actually excited to know what’s coming. Rather than kill that sense of anticipation, the vague pre-event rumors had merely seeded a curiosity to know more.

Compare that with last week’s “It’s Glowtime!” event. Obviously a lot of the thrill has been drained by a) streaming yet another pre-recorded virtual event rather than putting bums on seats and b) replacing Jobs’ nerveless stagecraft with Tim Cook’s safe-hands competence. But the main difference is the lack of mystery.

Apple’s three main announcements were the 16-series iPhones, the Apple Watch Series 10, and updates to the AirPods and AirPods Max. We knew not just that all of these things were coming, but pretty much everything about them.

What was wrong with the pre-event rumors? (You can get a broad approximation of what was expected by reading my satirical preview and ignoring the stuff about Jeff Williams presenting from a zoo.) A few things, some minor and some major: the name of the new Apple Watch (Series 10 instead of X) and the lack of even perfunctory refreshes for the SE and Ultra models; the substance of the AirPods update (no cheap model); the iPad mini not being updated after all (which probably just means a delay until October). But the list of things we did know about is so much longer that it would make a tedious column indeed to rattle them off here. Suffice it to say that there were precisely zero real surprises at the Glowtime event.

Make an impatient, selfish, charismatic genius the CEO, as Apple did when it brought back Jobs, and you can expect fireworks. Surprises, both good and bad. A show. Make an operations expert like Tim Cook the CEO and you get ruthless organization and professionalism, but you also get predictability. And by this point, we know exactly what to expect from Apple each fall. New phone, new watch, ’round we go again.

There have been other factors in the loss of mystery, of course: The potential for leaks has ballooned as the company’s supply chain grows more intricate and its employees push to work remotely (which probably explains why Apple is so reluctant to allow this). We in the media should probably admit to a share of the blame too.

But the fundamental issue isn’t that the information is getting out to punters before the event. It’s that the information isn’t surprising in the first place. Not like in the good old days.








Foundry

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Foundry

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